A Mother Like This
by Rikotsu-sama
Summary: Nora is having trouble coping with the war between her morals and motherhood in the aftermath of the world, and Danse struggles to accept her indiscriminate altruism despite their relationship. Perhaps she was never really meant to be a mother... [F!SS/Danse, ENDGAME SPOILERS] Rated T to be safe.


A/N: WARNING! Extremely immediate spoilers for end-game Fallout 4 (Minutemen faction) and Blind Betrayal. You've been warned.

* * *

Nora's hawklike eyes watched with cautious curiosity as the child played with Dogmeat, running carelessly around the traffic circle in Sanctuary. The way it moved—unhindered by convention and not weighed down by the types of anxieties which vexed her own mind—felt almost as if she were experiencing Kellogg's memories again. He was a ghost of her past life, which now felt as though it transpired a lifetime ago. In a literal sense, many lifetimes ago.

She sighed from where she reclined on a bench beneath the towering, forlorn tree that still managed to remain rooted deep in the ashen soil. How did she get here…? Not long ago, she could remember sitting on her porch watching the neighbor kids play, Shaun sleeping peacefully in her arms. Sighing again, she ran her fingers through her hair, taking a deep breath in an attempt to dispel the tightness in her throat.

"Something is troubling you."

She turned to her companion, a small smile on her lips. "You're as observant as ever, Danse." She paused, turning introspective again as she returned to looking at the boy. "…Do you think I made the right choice? Letting him come with me here?"

She feared his answer. She wanted encouragement, some reassurance she had made the right decision. Even together like they were, Danse spoke his mind. And his mind had never been anything other than completely sure of the Brotherhood and their hatred of synths. Even now, knowing he himself to be a synth, his fear of technology and other synths lingered. The only thing stopping him from likely shooting the child down on the spot was herself. The idea of the boy dying brought an unwelcome knot to her stomach, as did the idea of Danse's rebuking her for her choice.

His strong, rough fingers caressed her calves where they sat draped across his lap, and her nerves loosened a small fraction. "I believe you made the best choice you could for that moment." His head was hung, looking at the ground when she turned to look at his face. "If I am to believe that not all synths are technology run amok, then I must remain open-minded proceeding forward." His voice was inspirational, and made her heart flutter with hope.

His name whispered across his lips and he turned pensive brown eyes on her. "Thank you for saying that," she murmured.

His brows knitted together in concentration. "It is hard for me, still, to accept having a synth nearby you. Besides Valentine and… myself, it terrifies me imagining you so close to a synth, even more so one in the image of the leader of the Institute."

She frowned at him, suddenly angry. "I can take care of myself, you know," she spat, the words more malicious than she intended.

His lips quirked into a smile to her surprise. "I know that, soldier." His habit of calling her that, even now, bothered her. She was never the soldier—Nate was the soldier. She was just a lawyer… But she knew it comforted Danse to feel in control—like a leader, so she didn't say anything. "I know you are the single most capable person I have ever met, but you are also compassionate to a fault. You help out every person you meet as though you owe it to them to fetch a bloatfly gland or eradicate a hive of super mutants. I know you could never turn away someone who needs your help. That's something that I admire about you."

She couldn't ignore the heat rising in her face as he spoke so passionately. Instinctively, she looked away from his face.

He hadn't always admired her, though. She frowned at the some of her most painful memories since she came to the Commonwealth. The way Danse looked, a small frown on his lips, sweat slicking his hair to his skin from walking halfway across the Commonwealth with her, and the apology in his eyes hollowed her out. It felt like when he spoke, his voice carved out her heart. "… _Lately, I'm feeling like things are changing between us, and you've become more… distant. The way you're acting, it feels like you're slipping away from me… Maybe this relationship was a mistake."_

How did she reconcile this, not just to herself but everyone else? She had joined up with the Brotherhood with the hopes of finding Shaun, but once inside, it was startlingly apparent that the whole organization was riddled with bigotry and non-acceptance. Even Danse himself was the poster-child for hatred of anyone who was different: ghouls, synths, mercenaries… Anyone who was a threat or criminal per the Brotherhood manifesto. But in her short time in the Commonwealth, she had met some invaluable people. Nick had been instrumental in helping her find Kellogg and using his memories to find a way into the Institute, but he was a synth. Hancock had vouched for her in Goodneighbor and ran a tight ship, for the people of the people and where anyone and everyone was welcome, but he was a ghoul. MacCready was simply a broken man running solo and keeping everyone at arm's length because he feared for the safety of his dying son, but he'd been a gun for hire. A detective, a mayor, and a father. Were these people really any different from everyone else?

She couldn't buy into the Brotherhood's beliefs, having the friends she had, but still she needed them. She needed their resources and their manpower to construct the teleporter that would take her to the Institute. And she had always believed that the Brotherhood could be the best thing that ever happened to the Commonwealth. _Could_ being the operative word. She had yet to see them live up to their potential, what with all their missions to obtain and hoard technological artifacts instead of serving the people, as if the two things were mutually exclusive.

But even with her doubts of the Brotherhood and secret allegiances to other factions who better upheld her belief that everyone deserved a decent shot at the kind of life they wanted—regardless of what they looked like—, she had gone and fallen for Danse. Head over heals, this man owned her heart. And she knew he loved her too, even before they found out his true identity. She could see it in his eyes and in the way he smiled at her in easy, everyday moments. He had never loved a woman before, so perhaps even he was oblivious to her knowing, but she had been loved by a man once before. She had married him in fact, and she saw that same reverence, the same adoration and respect, in the way Danse looked at her that Nate used to have. But decorum prohibited their closeness, and she reluctantly accepted his boundaries.

By the time Maxson had tried to force her hand— _"Kill it, or I will"_ —, she had already made up her mind. The Brotherhood was not the hero of the Commonwealth that she had hoped they could be. They were simply tyranny under a mask of righteousness. How could she expect Danse to follow her down a path which directly defied his principal beliefs? Even in his exile, his fidelity was to the Brotherhood. She refused to return to the Prydwen for a promotion for "killing" the man she loved, and so she wrote off the Brotherhood. She could do this on her own. She could save the Commonwealth from the rot which putrified its core. And she would do it her own way. The Minutemen way.

She was wrested from her thoughts and back into her reality, sitting on that bench in Sanctuary, by Danse's words, "I set to join the Brotherhood, because it gave me purpose. Because I wanted to do more with my life than be a junk vendor in Rivet City." He paused, and she was scared he was doubting himself again. There was no way for either of them to know how much or how little of his past was fabricated by the Institute. She reached out for his face, and he caught her hand in his, letting the rough pads of his fingers scratch across her palm. He re-centered himself with a deep breath and continued, "I wanted to make the world a better place, and the Brotherhood upheld ideals that made sense. They don't anymore, when I myself am proof that synths are not entirely amoral.

"Nevertheless, I needed a movement, a family—a Brotherhood to bolster my confidence to change the way I lived my life. You? You woke up to an entirely different world, and even having suffered a monstrous injustice at the hands of the Institute, you spearheaded the re-establishment of the Minutemen, however foolish and altruistic. You hadn't lived in this world more than a month before you became the leader of what would soon be the most influential civilian militia and settlement alliance in the Commonwealth. You didn't need a pre-established faction to reinforce you; you fostered your own from practically nothing. And with it, you have done more than any single other person to help the people of the Commonwealth."

She supposed she had a pretty good track record thus far. She had saved synths, established trade routes, built water purifiers for farms, and helped ghouls fortify their homes _without_ the Brotherhood. She had advocated for _everyone_ to have a say in the way they lived their lives, and had funded projects to give them not just houses but homes. And Danse had watched her, indiscriminately assisting "the enemy" in building a life in the Commonwealth. She was building an army of support with which she would tear down the Institute's walls to expose the cancerous foundation.

In doing so, she had alienated him. Still, those words, those wretched, brutal words had wounded her far more than she anticipated. " _Maybe this relationship was a mistake._ " He said they needed time to work on their relationship… or just be friends. She couldn't imagine it anymore— what they had been like, as just comrades. She was so used to the feeling of his hands on her, and his breath against her face, of those ridiculous little smiles he would give her the morning after when he whispered, " _That was invigorating._ " And her heart would burst into a million pieces with unadulterated happiness. He was, in many ways, childlike, and his naive innocence never ceased to bring a smile to her face. She didn't want to go back to wanting him without the ability to have him.

But she could not ignore the injustices that the Institute had wrought against her people, nor could she condone the Brotherhood's misguided attempts to save humanity from corrupt technology. And so she did not apologize. Even if it meant losing him, she could not abandon the Commonwealth. She could not be selfish and prioritize her feelings for one man above that of everyone else. How many people in the Commonwealth had someone they loved? Someone they needed to stay alive, but who were at the mercy of the Institute and the Brotherhood? No, she could not justify making him more important. And so she let him go, and she carried on.

He'd come to see her, the night before she was set to infiltrate the Institute for a second time, after a long time apart.

 _She sat in Hangman's Alley—how had he known where she was?—lounging in one of the cramped apartment-style rooms she had helped the settlers construct there. With so little space, she had to maximize vertical space, building towering complexes which clung to the alley walls like apologetic lovers. She had chosen this settlement to rest in for the night because the ruins of CIT were a straight shot across the river, and from there she just had to skirt the riverbank to find the sewer entrance._

 _He stepped into the doorway that lacked a door from the narrow hallway, wary of her as he rapped his knuckles against the doorframe._

 _She lifted her eyes from the glass of whiskey between her fingers to meet his. The sight of him was bittersweet. His sturdy frame stood tall, even with out his power armor, and the Vault 111 suit she had given him fit like a glove. It was so good to see him, but more often than not, she regretted gifting him that vault suit. It was plastered only with bad memories of small spaces and the trauma of watching her husband murdered. Still, she gave him a small smile as she swirled the dark liquid in her glass. How pitiful of a sight was she: drinking alone on the eve of battle? Nevertheless, she greeted him. "Danse… It's been a while." Dogmeat barely perked up, lounging languidly in the center of the mattress Nora probably wouldn_ _'_ _t use._

" _May I come in?" he asked. Her chest ached at the sound of his voice. How long had it been? A few weeks at least, since she had told him they would be better off going their separate ways. It hurt so much to let him go, but she couldn't stand going on the way she planned to if it was only going to make him hate her more._

" _Of course, grab yourself a seat." She gestured to a metal folding chair leaning against the wall. Watching as he took the chair and set it up on the opposite side of the small coffee table she propped her feet up on, she offered, "Help yourself to a glass if you'd like."_

" _No thank you. I need to say this sober." He piqued her interest, and she eyed him with curiosity. He wrung his hands in a way that even made her nervous._

" _What is it, Danse?"_

" _I was wrong." He sighed, eyes resting on the nearly empty bottle of whiskey on the table. She sat in silence, waiting for him to continue. She had come to terms with losing him, but she admitted it felt so good sitting with him again. Just his presence in the same room made her somehow feel less incomplete._

 _He swallowed thickly and continued, "Not long ago, I berated you for putting a strain on our relationship. But after having time to reflect, I realize that I also had a hand in eroding our relationship. I was trying so hard to give as much as I took, but now I realize I never gave it a second thought that maybe one place where I could do that was your feelings towards the Brotherhood. You never truly accepted our— their ideals, and I realize I never gave your concerns and criticisms any real consideration. That was unfair of me."_

 _Nora mulled over his words, taking a sip of her drink. "Thank you for saying that, Danse. I appreciate that you're trying to mend bridges, but I don't think there's one to mend for us."_

" _I can't believe that," he said immediately. So quickly it startled Nora, in fact. "I realize I have been set in my ways, and I have done some things you may never forgive, but I out-right refuse to believe that our relationship is irreparable." He paused, and she wondered if he was going to cry. He looked back up into her eyes with a fierce determination. "You always took my concerns to heart, and I believe you deserve a second chance at being the woman I fell in love with… The truth is, I miss you terribly… and I was hoping that we could be together again. Will you give me another chance?"_

 _She ruminated carefully on his words, swishing them back and forth in her mind, before looking back at him. "Danse, I very well may die tomorrow. As I'm sure you've heard from Haylen or Preston, we have a way into the Institute. Without using nuclear weaponry." She referred to Liberty Prime and the deadly arsenal of nukes they had, together, acquired for it just before shit hit the fan. "…The world has seen enough of the aftermath of nuclear weaponry already," she muttered in an afterthought._

 _Danse sat silently across from her still, waiting with expectant eyes for an answer to a question she didn't feel she could adequately express. "Danse… Even if we did give us another chance, the same problems will arise again." She readjusted in her chair, straightening her posture to look at him. "Can you look me in the eye and tell me you believe synths are people who deserve equal rights? What about ghouls?" He frowned at her words and she scoffed. "I didn't think so." She didn't want to show it, but she was on the verge of tears. She didn't want to show him how much she, too, wanted a second chance. How desperately she wanted him to hold her, to comfort her on the night before she would be tearing down all her son had built. The night before she would likely have to kill her own son. But she refused to show him weakness. She had gotten this far on her own strength, she could get through one more day. Just one more day._

 _But with her inhibitions lowered from the glass and a half of whiskey she'd had, she couldn't stop her loosened tongue from lashing out, "I just don't understand it! How can you believe synths aren't people when you yourself are a synth, Danse? Did you hear me?" She set down her glass, and crawled angrily across the small table and into his personal space, posturing at him with an accusatory finger. "You're a synth, Danse. And if you ever truly felt it when you said you loved me, then you are just as human as I am. You deserve the same chance to define your life the way you want as anyone else does. Even if you were created instead of born." She dropped her hand, letting it fall onto his knee. For a moment, she let it caress him. God, she had missed the feeling of him close to her._

 _Resolutely, she lifted her hand, fisting the collar of his suit and pulling him into a feral kiss. She raked her teeth across his lips and he moaned against her in a way that set her on fire. But she pulled away, earning a whimper from him. Looking him square in the eye she told him, "If you want me back, you're going to have to change the way you look at the entire world, because I've sacrificed too much already to not put my morals first. If you can't do that, then there's the door." She sat back down in her chair, downing the rest of her whiskey and gesturing to the way he had come in._

 _She couldn't entirely process it when he stood, and without another word, left the room. She knew she had asked too much of him. But there was no going back._

It felt as though she forgot how to breathe. Both the poignant memory and Danse's compelling speech caught her off guard. When she spoke, her voice was small. "You flatter me too much. Preston was the real hand behind the Minutemen, and the settlers did most of the work. If I was able to give people a place to call home, they were willing to help defend it. I didn't do it alone."

He smiled. "And you're still humble." Slowly, he hooked his arms under her legs and pulled her closer to sit in his lap. Strong arms held her waist tight to him as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. "I like it when you're this close…" His voice was barely a whisper.

She reveled in the feeling of his proximity, looping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him up to meet her lips in a kiss. The scratch of his stubble and the soft pillow of his tongue were too human. Yes, she decided, he was much, much more than just a machine. He was the man she loved, and who loved her.

He pulled away, looking as if he were about to cry. "If I lost you, I don't know what I'd do." His voice ached with sadness.

"Oh, Danse." Her stomach wrenched at the same thought reversed. She leaned her forehead against his, and gently caressed him with her voice, "I'm not going anywhere, remember?" She pushed his face up to look her in the eyes. "I love you."

He smiled sadly, leaning in to kiss her again. She lost herself in him, in his honesty and his bravery and the strength of his spirit. For all of the things Father had done wrong, Danse was not one of those things. If nothing else good came of the Institute under Father, at least she had Danse.

"Ew!" The sudden voice startled them both, causing Nora to knock her head against Danse's in a painful crack.

Nursing her head, she turned in Danse's arms to look at Shaun, big brown eyes—Nora's own eyes—staring up at her and Danse with a look of vague disgust. Nora burst out laughing in heavy waves. Looking confused, Shaun ran off again to play with Dogmeat, who was enjoying a brahmin tibia. Nora was left in stitches, her whole body shaking with the strength of her own laughter.

Honestly, what had she been thinking? Allowing the kid to come home with her? It was like letting a snake wrap around her throat, and even now she could feel its squeeze dripping the life from her. Still, watching him run… she couldn't help but smile. It was her baby boy. Or as close as she could get to the one she'd lost. The boy was Shaun. In speech, mannerisms, name, and even biology. In all but the literal sense, he _was_ Shaun. Still, at the same time, he was Father. Younger, and a synth, yes, but he was created by Father. Who knew what failsafes and trojans lurked in his programming. She couldn't put it beyond Father to create a back-up plan should she have turned on him. All she could hope for was that he was naive enough not to have that level of forethought concerning his own mother.

Even months after infiltrating the Institute, after discovering her son was… Father, she could scarcely believe it. It was so surreal, the idea that her son was now older, more educated, more accomplished, and perhaps even wiser than she was herself. And he had done all that without her. She was suddenly this absent parent in his life, the one thing she had sworn to never be. And she had no way of going back to correct that. The chance to be a mother had slipped through her fingers.

She had been so appalled by what she saw in the Institute, what she had seen in Father, that she had to put aside her allegiance to him to do what was right. Still, seeing him lying in that bed, skin a sickly pale tinged green, her heart ached. Even having forsaken the Institute, and in doing so forsaken him too, she wanted to die at the knowledge that destroying the reactor would kill him. Even with his body withering from cancer, she wanted to believe she owed him better than that. But the world back in her own time, on that damned day in October just before Halloween, when all the neighbors' houses were decked out for the trick-or-treaters that would never come… Those people didn't deserve the fiery oblivion that consumed them either. In the end, none of them got to choose the fate they were handed. And she would not argue that Father did not deserve the death she would serve him.

"Nora?" Danse asked, bemused and slightly afraid.

Danse's voice brought her back. It was all over now. She would and could never go back to that wicked place. She was in Sanctuary, she was safe. And her past was her past.

Tears in her eyes, she tried to breathe deeply and squash the laughter erupting out of her like a volcano. Through haggard breath, she wheezed, "I— I always imagined being a mom, but I never imagined it would look like— like this!" Her laughter dissolved as she looked at the boy, crouched down next to a smiling Dogmeat. She smiled sadly, the tears now falling from the wretchedness of sorrow.

She thought of the day she had brought Shaun home. Dozens of parenthood books under her belt, she still felt woefully unprepared as she was suddenly standing in her living room, holding a baby… A _baby_. Looking down, she could still remember the look of Shaun's chubby cheeks and his single wisp of brown hair. She could feel the touch of Nate's hand at her back, his breath on her neck, and the sound of his voice in her ear, "Welcome home, honey." In that moment, her world was perfect. She had a family. She was a mother to a beautiful baby boy.

Blinking back her memories, Dance looked at her concernedly. Cautiously, he pulled her closer, stroking her back with his hands. Just being close to him was soothing, and she took a few deep breaths with her head resting on his shoulder.

Abruptly, a very strange thought occurred to her. "Danse… remember how I told you Shaun was called Father in the Institute?" Her eyes turned to watch the child playing with an intact basketball she'd found in Vault 75. He bounced it sloppily, like his arms didn't quite do what he wanted them too, as Dogmeat jumped at it and barked happily.

Danse nodded, "Yes. Why do you ask?"

She swallowed, anxious about the odd thing which had occurred to her. "He was called Father because all the synths, or the new ones—the human ones, were made using his uncorrupted genetics." She turned to look Danse in the eye, still so close. "That includes you."

He frowned, tensing slightly against her as scores of emotions flickered across his eyes. "What's your point?"

She laughed, ducking her head for a moment before slipping her arms around his neck, linking them there. "If Shaun is my son, and he is, in some way, your Father, then that makes you my…"

"Grandson?" He looked at her incredulously as he spoke the word.

"That's weird, isn't it?" She blushed, feeling foolish for having brought it up. "Sorry I mentioned it. We know that's not really how it works…"

He laughed, smiling wide. "If that's true," he murmured, suddenly hiding a blush by nuzzling his head into the crook of her neck as he liked to do. "I think I have a crush on my grandmother."

She could scarcely believe the words that came from his mouth, and she started to laugh again. This time it was happy. She was laughing because she loved him and he hadn't been offended by her ridiculous realization or the insinuations she'd made. He still loved her, despite her short-comings. Despite her insatiable altruism and uncompromisable morals, he still came home to her.

 _It made her think of the moment she'd returned to Sanctuary from the Institute that day, the soot from the explosion still clinging to the air. Covering her mouth with a hand riddled with scratches, she coughed as the dust irritated her lungs. Her legs ached and she felt as though she would collapse at any moment from sheer exhaustion. How many hours had it been since she slept?_

 _She closed her eyes, and she could see his face. His brown eyes, his white hair, his curled lips, and that… hateful voice. "Tell me, under what righteous pretense do you justify this atrocity?"_

 _She had choked on her words. How does a mother tell her son that the way he grew up had poisoned him, corrupted him? How could a mother possibly tell her child her love for him wasn't enough? That her love couldn't make her ignore what he had become? "You attacked us, Shaun. You were set to slaughter the Minutemen at the Castle—the Minutemen are_ my _men. Those are my people out there. They saved me from this world, and you were set to kill them. Under what righteous pretense did you justify_ that _atrocity?"_

 _Down to the very marrow in her bones, fatigue gnawed at her. At least she was largely too tired to feel the sharp, splintering pain of regret. Still, even as she walked alongside Preston, who chattered away about how her actions, her—God, the word sickened her to hear—"heroics" would go down in the annals of history, she wished for silence. But sometimes quiet is violent, leaving no escape from her thoughts. There was no reprieve._

 _Every settlement she passed through, someone had thanked her for what she had done to rid the world of the Institute. Someone would tell her she had done the right thing, or she must be proud of all she had done for the Commonwealth. It still didn't feel good, knowing she had killed her own son. And Father was right. She could preach all day about the greater good or what he had become, but the facts were infallible. And the fact of the matter was that she was a mother who had murdered her own child._

 _Crossing the bridge into Sanctuary was an answered prayer, and she bid Preston goodbye at the road as she took her leave of the gaggle of Minutemen who begged her to stay up and celebrate. She politely declined, and Preston looked at her with pitying eyes—why did he have to look at her like she was broken?—before he saluted her goodnight._

 _Nora dropped her gear just inside the door to her house, just barely closing the door behind her before a sob ripped from her throat. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound; walls didn't do as good of a job at hiding the sound these days. She needed a drink. But she was startled as out of the corner of her eye she watched Danse stand from his seat at the center island. How had she not noticed him? Or, for that matter, his power armor parked by the decrepit TV set?_

 _She sniffled, wiping her tears on the sleeve and pulling her lips into a taught line to face him. "What do you want, Danse? I already told you where the door was yesterday." Her words were vicious, out for blood. After the kind of day she was having, she couldn't deal with his intolerance too. She couldn't deal with the heavy-handed need in her belly desperately calling out for her to touch him. A bitter war waged inside her, and she was not ready to surrender quite yet to the spiteful fatigue which threatened to pull her under._

 _He looked at her stoically for a moment, before frowning and looking away._

" _Whatever." She waved a hand at him dismissively. "Stay if you want, I just need a drink." She stalked past him, heading for her liquor cabinet where she kept a special bottle of whiskey, one gifted to her by Jack Cabot. "I'd kept this for the day I figured out how to free my father from the artifact," he'd said, "but since that day will not come, I want you to have it. Maybe one day, when you achieve something you never thought possible, you can give that bottle the enjoyment it deserves." She stared down at the bottle in her hands, running her fingers across the smooth, untarnished label. The escape was a siren's song to her, seductive and desperate to be experienced. Still, she found herself putting the bottle down. That bottle deserved better than her pity party._

 _Sighing, she leaned her hands against the counter and hung her head. "Aren't you going to say something?" she practically begged him to. Maybe his voice would give her amnesty from the damnation threatening to swallow her whole._

" _What would you have me say?" He moved behind her, but she didn't turn to look at him._

 _Danse deserved better than this. He deserved better than a woman who would not compromise with him to make their relationship work. He deserved better than a mother who had murdered her child in cold blood. He deserved so much better than her…_

 _Sensing herself on the precipice of a point-of-no-return, she tried to turn to him, rebuke him, push him away, but found herself caught in his hold. As arms wrapped tightly around her and his strong body cradled her back, she felt anger boil up inside her. "Let me go," she commanded._

" _I don't know what horrors you endured today, Nora, but I'm not going to let you endure those demons alone," he said, his voice gruff in her ear._

 _She twisted in his arms. "Danse, Let. Me. Go." Her voice was a wounding growl, but he didn't waver, holding her so tightly it almost hurt. She couldn't move her arms, and she let a snarl erupt from behind her clenched teeth. Feeling cornered, she began to thrash with feral desperation, screaming out in fury and kicking wildly. "I don't want you here! Let me go!"_

" _Nora…" His voice was like a balm to her frayed nerves, but her pride and hopelessness clashed. "You aren't alone." He must have whispered it a million times. "You aren't alone." So many times she was terrified she might one day believe it. "You aren't alone."_

 _At last, her energy was utterly spent, and she collapsed in his grasp, breathing ragged and futile tears stinging at her eyes. "Why won't you let me go…?"_

" _Nora, I told you once that you were going to need to be patient with me." She twisted as she looked up at him through blurry eyes, and his face was strained with fear. Fear at losing her? "I want to try to see things differently. Everything I've ever done was for the betterment of mankind, and yet here I sit feeling like I was created to destroy it, despite all evidence to the contrary. I want to change that feeling, but it won't happen overnight. Please, Nora," he pleaded, "give me the chance to do that. Give me the chance to be the person you need."_

" _The person I need?" She could again feel that vengeful, unforgiving fury rising in her chest. "The person I need is my son, Danse. Do you know where he is? He's dead! I killed him today!" Her voice softened as her heart finally broke. "I killed him today," she whispered again as the floodgates shattered, leaving her soul to be wasted by sorrow. He held her tighter, curled her small body up against his own. She sobbed helplessly, "I'm not a mother anymore…"_

No matter what trials she had weathered, he stood the test of time. He had demonstrated extraordinary dedication to her, and he was changing. Day by day, she saw more compassion for Hancock, for Nick, and everyone else. She saw him soften, treat them fairly. And it warmed her.

Refocusing on his face in the here and now, she was glad he had stayed. She couldn't express her gratitude towards him, not really. Not in a way that would adequately convey it. He had been a foothold on a slippery slope. How could she ever tell him what that had meant to her? Reclining again, she watched Danse as he watched Shaun play. He looked on with a cautious curiosity, and it made her smile. He, too, had his doubts about her decision to bring him back with her, but he placed his faith in her. It served as a reminder that their bond was unshakable.

She smiled happily, and sighed as she wrested herself from Danse's loving touch. She walked to the boy and crouched down, taking one of Shaun's hands in her own as he looked down on her with a crease between his brows. She stroked his hand for a moment with her thumb before looking up into his eyes. Cupping her hand over her mouth, she told him a secret…

* * *

Danse watched her as Nora crouched next to the child. Motherhood looked good on her, that type of tenderness and compassion for a child who she respected as deeply as any person. But perhaps, she had been a mother to the Commonwealth all along. She led it down a path of peace and acceptance where others sought to corrupt it.

He watched as she covered her mouth with her hand to whisper to the boy, eyes darting in his direction, as if she were telling the boy a secret. Shaun's eyes lit up at her words, and a smile spread across her lips as she stood to watch the boy bound up to Danse. What was the child doing?

His heart stopped dead in its tracks as the child flung itself into his arms, calling him the one thing he never imagined he would be called, "Daddy!"

* * *

Nora had always imagined being a mother, yes, but watching Danse looking flabbergasted at the ten-year-old Shaun after calling him 'Daddy'? She had never imagined her family would look quite like this. But she would never have it any other way.


End file.
